Just Another Day in the Neighbourhood
by Colonel-Mustard1990
Summary: One-shot written for the competition run by Sterella; just a day in the life of a UNSC base. T for some language, that being English.


Just a one-shot I wrote in a competition for Sterella's story, Left Wing Trauma, a rather nifty piece involving a medic on a war-torn world. I won't go into much detail, but if you wish to give it a read (something I highly recommend you do), then the link is here: http:/ /www. fanfiction. net/s/7470657/1/Left_Wing_Trauma

Also, Halo belongs to Bungie, and Missy belongs to Sterella. Now sit back and enjoy!

Just Another Day in the Neighbourhood

"GET OUT OF MY TENT, YOU SON OF A BITCH!"

Six am on the dot and Missy was woken by her usual alarm. She shook her head to clear some of the tiredness that stubbornly clung to her brain like a lethargic, apathetic barnacle, and poked her head just in time to see a fleeing David be hit on the head by an expertly thrown boot. A quick glance along the row of tents that he was running along revealed that she wasn't the only watcher, several other members of the camp's occupants viewing the spectacle as well, just another part of the morning's routine.

They watched as the piece of footwear slammed into the back of his cranium, and David staggered slightly before managing to right himself and continue his sprint. There was a slightly disappointed air as they watched him make his escape, all of them secretly hoping that the boot would floor him like it sometimes did, but it seemed that wasn't going to be the case on this particular morning.

With the regular early morning ritual now out of the way, the occupants of Delta Base retreated back into their tents to meet the rest of their day.

Swiftly enough, Missy pulled on the fatigues that she wore for her usual day about base. A comb ran through her hair before she pulled it back into the regulation ponytail, and went to check on the patients.

'The patients' as they were, were not really all that much in the way of patients, in that at the moment there weren't any. Missy's position as one of the small base's combat medic meant that she had little to do outside of firefights, where she usually found herself with too much to do, and those who usually involved in such situations found their way to one of the military hospitals nestled a safe distance away from the front lines. Instead, it was her job to deal with the stream of petty ailments, complaints about health and minor medical problems that didn't require the attentions of one of the hospitals. It was quiet, largely uneventful work that never really went anywhere; there were one or two exceptions to this rule, such as the outbreak of food poisoning which had been largely unpleasant for just about everyone involved, and had generally put the reputation of Mess Sergeant Winters into ill repute, who to this day blamed his assistant, Corporal Herat, who he insisted was an Insurrectionist infiltrator. To anyone who would listen, he'd say; "It was that Corporal Herat who caused the food poisoning outbreak. Y'know why he poisoned the base? He's an insurrectionist, that's why." Corporal Herat would, of course, vehemently deny this, and this would in turn confirm Mess Sergeant Winters' suspicions all the more. "Of course he denies it. Only an insurrectionist would deny being an insurrectionist as strong as he does." Anyone who tried to point out the flaw in his reasoning generally found themselves labelled as a collaborator and going without meals for the rest of the day.

Right now, the medical tent was empty, except for Doctor Vaclavik, a man with a good word about nothing and a bad word about just everything he could think of. Conversation with him was less conversation and more listening to a near-endless list of complaints about this, that and the other, and he viewed any attempts to try and deal with any of these as a personal affront. He seemed to exist off a sense of petty annoyance at the world, as if to spite it with the mere fact of his existence, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that would cause him to ever end the bitter turf war he fought against the universe. Missy had never managed to meet anyone so bad tempered, petty or so skilful and holding a grudge. She quite liked him.

"Anything wrong?" she asked as she poked her head through the canvas.

"Well apart from the-" Vaclavik began before Missy interrupted with a; "Good," and left. She wanted some breakfast, and once the doctor started he was even harder to stop than your average rockslide; all you could do is get out of the way as quickly as you possibly could and hope you managed to come out alive.

"There's the problem with people these days," she heard him grumble as she left. "No time for their elders. Thirty years in the medical profession, five of those risking my hide on the frontlines to save the asses of the UNSC's soldiers, and what do I get…"

His grizzling faded from hearing as she headed to the mess tent, stepping through the canvas flap and into the steamy, noisy space. It was always hot in there, the combination of deep fat fryers, ovens and various other cooking devices that Missy couldn't even name ending up giving the place a sauna atmosphere. Several soldiers were already eating at the folding tables that constituted the furniture in there. Corporal Herat, a pleasant natured, dusky skinned young man who probably wasn't trying to undermine the UNSC waved at Missy as she entered, clad in his usual white apron and chef's hat. The clothing wasn't standard issue for UNSC mess personnel, but he liked wearing it anyway; according to him, it made him feel like a feel chef. It was a dream of his to own his own restaurant one day, and he figured that if he could cook in a place where plasma-based doom was just around the corner and he was constantly being accused of being an enemy of the state then he could cook anywhere.

"Morning, Missy," he said as she took a tray and a plate. "How's the doc?"

"Complaining, as usual," she replied. "So what's-"

"Herat, get your traitorous, backstabbing ass in here!" a voice bawled from the small kitchen at the back, no doubt Mess Sergeant Winters. "Now, dammit!"

"Coming, mess sergeant!" the corporal called back, before turning to Missy. "The usual's all there."

'The usual' consisted of bacon, sausages, baked beans, scrambled eggs, fried eggs and fried bread, all sitting quite comfortably in a warm layer of grease. Winters' cooking was all like this; generally, he distrusted food that didn't do its utmost to viciously assassinate a person's arteries, and anything that was green or a plant was completely out of the question. Doctor Vaclavik had complained to Winters once about the state it would leave the soldiers' health in, a magnificent tirade that had lasted nearly an hour and had had half of the base gathering just to listen to him rant at the impassive, stoic mess sergeant before he had finally ran out of steam, thrown his hands up in the air in despair and cursed the Sergeant enthusiastically. Winters' reply was quite simply; "My food is good UNSC food. You don't like it, then you're an Insurrection sympathiser. I don't serve Innies in my mess."

Vaclavick had sworn at him once more before limping off in a foul mood, smacking Herat on the head with his cane and saying it was his fault for the damn food poisoning business. Winters, on the other hand, had chalked that up as a victory for good old fashioned UNSC values, and had boasted of his triumph over "that subversive doctor" for about a week after.

Winters was a fine man who had decided long ago that anything that he disliked, disagreed with or just looked at him funny was an attempt at Insurrectionist infiltration, and it was safe to say that he found Insurrection elements wherever he decided to look for them. Anyone who hadn't passed his test at being loyal enough to the UNSC usually found food withheld from them until Colonel Day had to order the man to feed his troops again. Naturally, Winters had added the colonel to his list of Insurrection sympathisers, but his hands were tied on account of Day's rank.

Missy helped herself to a few rashers of bacon and a fried egg, sitting down at one of the folding tables and beginning to eat. Over at the far side, she could see Alice glowering into her food, the usual state of affairs after her regular argument, clearly still upset about whatever it was here and David had decided to argue about this time. Once, Missy would have gone to try and comfort her, but like everyone else on the base she had simply accepted that it was a regularity and let them continue their bizarre relationship without outside intervention.

The six am argument had become a clockwork occurrence on Delta Base since seven months ago, when Alice and David had got together. Every morning, they would wake up at about half past five, find something to argue about and by six it would culminate with Alice's yell and her throwing the boot. And then, by the evening, they would have reconciled their differences and gone to Alice's tent for a night of passionate makeup sex. People had stopped bothering to set alarms, instead just letting Alice to scream at her boyfriend and using that to wake them up. Missy could remember only one occasion when that hadn't happened, the day after a particularly vicious argument where the ballistic footwear had knocked David unconscious and he'd had to spend the entire day in the recovery tent, with Alice caught in such paroxysms of righteous outrage she refused to see him. Half the base had overslept that day.

Colonel Day could have broken their rather dysfunctional relationship up, but his alarm clock had stopped working and he'd figured that letting them be would be cheaper than just buying a new one.

The fabric of the tent suddenly rippled, a deep booming sounding outside, and several people reached for weapons, expecting attack.

"It's the damn Insurrection!" Winters yelled, sprinting out of the kitchen brandishing a cleaver. "Bastards won't catch me napping!"

The tent door suddenly zipped open, and Huddy, the base's chief mechanic, staggered in a moment later, face covered in soot and hair all but scorched away.

"What happened?" someone asked.

"It was the damn Innies, wasn't it?" Winters asked, almost hopping up and down in his eagerness to spill the blood of his most hated foe that who no doubt supported by the combined efforts of Corporal Heart, Doctor Vaclavick and Colonel Day.

"Compressed hydrogen," Huddy managed, seemingly still stunned. "Matches. Big bang."

His shellshocked gaze surveyed the mess tent for a moment, before it fixed on Missy after a few moments.

"Bring bandages," he said to her, before he collapsed.

Missy shook her head, pushed her tray to one side, picked Huddy up and carried him to the medical tent where her duffel bag of emergency supplies was stored away.

Just another day in the neighbourhood.


End file.
